Back in the fall of 2020, when COVID-19 shut down the live music industry, the United States Department of Homeland Security quietly proposed increases in the cost of visas necessary for foreign musicians who want to tour America.
The new asking price of a “P-3″ visa, the one needed by musicians who want to play live in America, would rise to US$690 from US$460, a jump of 67 per cent. Another document, the four flavours of the “O” visa (required by people with “extraordinary ability or achievement” or accompanying people/relatives of such people) also had a proposed increase.
These proposals landed at a time when no one was on the road, so the timing suggests that the U.S. wanted the new fees to slip under the radar. Those who noticed expressed concern about the increased financial burden on any non-American act. There was some initial chatter about the situation, but with months of COVID lockdowns ahead, no one paid too much attention and the increases were never put into place.
But then earlier this year, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USIC) tried again. This time, the all-important “P” visa would jump to US$1,615 from US$460. That’s a bump of 250 per cent. Let’s break this down:
- US$1,615 for a solo artist or a band (P visa)
- US$1,615 for the road crew (P via)
- US$190 (at minimum) per relative/accompanying person)
Assuming a four-piece band, their road crew, a manager, and one boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse, that’s US$3,420 (nearly $4,600 Canadian) before you even get to the border — actually, you have to apply at least three months before you leave home. Sure, you can have your petition expedited and pushed through within five days or so, but that’s another US$1,440 (or roughly C$1,935). That means a grand total of C$6,535 before the band sees a dime from the tour. This, of course, is in addition to transportation, fuel, salaries, hotel rooms, and food.
Those costs have also gone up, of course. With so much touring activity going on the cost of renting gear, trucks, and buses has skyrocketed. And because so many roadies left the business during COVID-19, their kind of labour and expertise is in short supply and costs more.
Homeland Security/USIC say that the increases in visa fees are necessary because they haven’t increased since 2016 when P visas went up to the current US$460 from around US$275, a bump of 42 per cent. That raised some red flags at the time, but for the most part, this became a normal cost of doing business.
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So why just a hike now? The revenue from new ultra-high fees will be applied (at least partly) to hiring more people to deal with the post-COVID backlog of requests for visas. Some of the money will also help pay for some U.S. asylum programs. In other words, the U.S. government is making foreign acts pay for its inability to get its bureaucratic act together when it comes to its borders.
If you’re an act of a certain size, any new fee is just another annoying line item in the touring budget spreadsheet. But if you’re an emerging artist, an artist from a marginalized community, or even a solid medium-sized group, this kind of money doom any possibility of touring the biggest music market in the world.
This is a disaster because staying home and touring through just Canada is very expensive. I’ve heard from some acts who have returned from a Canadian tour in debt. And if it becomes too expensive to tour the U.S. — well, you see the problem. More Canadian artists looking toward Europe instead, but that features its own financial hassles.
Let’s say you’re in a solid middle-class band that often ducks south to play a couple of border cities on short regional tours. Cities like Buffalo and Detroit get plenty of these shows. But if you’re in the hole by $4,600 to begin with, it’s just not possible. And imagine the panic of Mexican bands who want to head north for a tour.
Fine. So let’s retaliate by hiking our visa fees for American bands who want to play shows up here. The crazy thing is that there’s nothing reciprocal about this. Depending on how many dates an American artist wants to play in Canada, the visa costs may be — wait for it — zero.
And just in case you think that only Canadian musicians are being asked to pay for U.S. bureaucratic bungling, these proposed new fees will affect all touring acts from anywhere in the world. There’s a U.K. campaign launched by the Featured Artists Coalition called Let the Music Move. Its goal is to ask people “to call on the U.K. government to do more to support the future of the music industry, and to raise awareness of proposals in the U.S. to significantly increase the costs for performers seeking visas to perform in the country.”
There have also been calls by the Music Managers Forum for something to be done. It says that 84 per cent of the acts under the care of its member managers want to tour the U.S. but 70 per cent of them say they’ll abandon those plans if the fees kick in.
(Britain has to be careful about pointing fingers. Since Brexit, it’s been very difficult for British bands to tour the continent and vice-versa. The recent plight of a German band called Trigger Happy is a case in point; they had a U.K. tour scuppered because of border bureaucracy. Meanwhile, it’s estimated that the post-Brexit cost of a U.K. band to tour the continent has increased by at least 40 per cent.)
The U.S. should tread carefully with this cash grab. Andrew Cash, the president and CEO of the Canadian Independent Music Association penned an op-ed for The Globe and Mail:
“In the U.S., every $1 spent on a concert ticket has a ripple effect of $3.30 in the local economy, according to a study by Oxford Economics Group,” Cash wrote.
“That multiplier includes concertgoer spending on things such as transportation, band merch, meals and drinks, lodging, retail, and recreation. And by some estimates, musicians touring the U.S. spend an average of US$3,000 a week on food, gas and lodging. In total, the Canadian Independent Music Association estimates that Canadian touring contributes more than $2 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Now include artists from the U.K., Europe and Asia to this list — not to mention Mexico and South America — and you’d think even the biggest music market in the world would want a piece of this action.”
It’s insanity, really. How is this a win for anyone other than the USIC and Homeland Security?
Entire careers are riding on the outcome. Ottawa needs to do something.
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Alan Cross is a broadcaster with Q107 and 102.1 the Edge and a commentator for Global News.
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